The RCPC Land Use Committee will meet this Wednesday, December 26th starting at 7:30 PM in the upstairs meeting room of the Rockridge Branch Library on College Ave. The meeting will be open to the public.

There was a packed auditorium at College Preparatory School on the evening of October 18th to hear a candidate forum featuring the two candidates for the California Assembly 15th District: Jovanka Beckles and Buffy Wicks. The forum was moderated by the Oakland League of Women Voters and also co-sponsored by the East Bay Housing Organizations.

A full-house crowd attended the RCPC- Oakland League of Women Voters joint Town Hall on October 4th at the Rockridge Library. Kathleen Cha, the Oakland League's communications director and a veteran presenter, went through the state and local ballot measures that will be on the ballot November 6th. She briefly summarized what each measure was about, told what groups were supporting and opposing each measure, and gave the major pros and cons for eah measure.

A sizeable crowd gathered at the Rockridge Library meeting room on September 20th to hear speakers address numerous Rockridge transportation issues. While there was no official representative of Oakland's Department of Transportation ("OakDOT") present, a variety of speakers, including RCPC's transportation committee chair, Alden Conner, provided information on topics ranging from the reconfiguration of the Rockridge BART's Ford Gobike bikeshare station to mini-roundabouts on Shafter Ave.

Last Thursday, June 14th, RCPC and the Greater Rockridge Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council co-hosted their annual Town Hall meeting. The special guest speaker is the new Oakland Police Department district commander for the area of Oakland that includes Rockridge, Captain Chris Bolton. In addition, RCPC's segment included a discussion of bicycle riding on College Avenue sidewalks and what (if anything) to do about it, as well as other Rockridge transportation issues.

Videos from that Town Hall have now been posted for viewing on YouTube.

On April 19th, 2018, RCPC held its annual meeting and April Town Hall at the Rockridge Branch Library. A total of twenty-nine Rockridge residents signed in for the election, above the minimum quorum requirement of twenty-five. An additional eight Rockridge residents voted on Saturday at a polling place in front of the library. At the meeting, the five candidates for the Board of Directors: Ashley Cruz, M.C.

With opposition to their bill appearing both wide and strong, Senators Scott Wiener (D-S.F.) and Nancy Skinner (D-Oakland/Berkeley) backpedaled significantly on their bill to mandate upzoning near transit stations and along transit corridors. However, it was apparently not enough. SB 827's first committee hearing, before the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, happened April 17th. While the results of that hearing were not yet available on the Legislature's website, News

There wasn’t quite the full house that had greeted the January Town Hall, but the March Town Hall audience, coming to hear a follow-up report on the Rockridge BART Station Ford GoBike bikeshare station, as well as new enforcement plans for Rockridge’s many Residential Permit Parking areas, was still plentiful, and they got lots of information from the meeting.

The February Rockridge News featured an article on Senators Scott Wiener's (D-San Francisco) and Nancy Skinner's (D-Oakland-Berkeley) bill, which would mandate residential upzoning near transit stations and major transit line stops statewide. Faced with significant opposition to their bill, they have added a series of amendments. (The attached file shows the bill's amended language as of March 1, 2018.)

Following up on a commitment made at the January RCPC Town Hall meeting, representatives of BART, the City, and Motivate (the bikeshare provider) are beginning the process of re-evaluating possible sites for a bikeshare station for the Ford GoBike bikeshare program. The program is cosponsored by the City, Motivate, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and bikeshare stations are being located in many cities throughout the Bay Area. The Rockridge BART station location is a key location within Rockridge, with space for up to 35 bikes.

Following up on their success last year in passing SB 35 (see Land Use Committee Update article for January 2018), State Senators Scott Wiener (San Francisco) and Nancy Skinner (Oakland/Berkeley) have introduced a new bill, SB 827, intended to address California's housing crisis. The bill would create a "transit-rich housing bonus" that would apply to areas near transit stations or "high quality transit corridors" (bus service at least every 15 minutes during peak travel hours). In those areas, local zoning height limits would be replaced by height limits

An overflow crowd filled the Rockridge Library's meeting room on the evening of January 24th to hear about a variety of topics, mostly related to transportation. The topic included the removal and replacement of trees around the Rockridge BART station that had been identified as hazards, placing min-roundabouts along Shafter Avenue in conjunction with its repaving this Spring, the location of Ford Go-bike bikeshare stations around Rockridge, including in front of the Firestorm tile mural at the Rockridge BART station, and an update on a condominium project put forward by Signature

The Land Use Committee's January 24th meeting will be held, beginning at 7:30 PM, at the upstairs meeting room of the Rockridge Branch Library on College Ave. at Manila St. The agenda will focus on the ongoing Rockridge Housing Study and include the following:

If you've driven past the corner of Broadway and Pleasant Valley in the last week, you may have noticed activity there. Here's the latest update from TRC, Inc., the developers of "Shops at the Ridge," on the demolition of the old, asbestos-contaminated Chase Bank building at the corner. Demolition had been stalled by the discovery that the cables holding up the roof deck were covered with asbestos. The City has now issued a demolition permit to take the building down, and the plans have been approved by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which